Biological Modeling and Evolution Based Synthesis of Metamorphic Mechanisms

A methodology for synthesis and configuration design of metamorphic mechanisms is developed in this paper based on biological modeling and genetic evolution with biological building blocks. The goal is to conceive an appropriate source-metamorphic-mechanism configuration when the multiple phases of kinematic functions are given. The key enabler is the way of developing genetic evolution in modeling and design by capturing the metamorphic configuration characteristics. With the unique characteristic of achieving multiple working-phase functions in a mechanism, the metamorphic mechanism possesses two features: one, the ametabolic feature referring to the specified working phases that can be accomplished by a number of traditional mechanisms; two, the metamorphic feature occurring in transition between different working phases, resulting in change of topology of the mechanism. Based on this transition between phases, the concept of mechanism evolution is for the first time introduced in this paper based on biological building blocks in the form of metamorphic cells and associated intrinsic elements as the metamorphic gene. This leads to development of cell evolution and genetic aggregation with mechanism decomposition and evolutionary operation based on mapping from the source-metamorphic mechanism to multiphase working configurations. Examples are given to demonstrate the concept and principles.